[ale] How to drive Linux browser to make a campground sniper?

[Alex Carver]

Greasemonkey is the most frequently used scripting plugin for Firefox

On 2018-01-13 11:20, Pete Hardie via Ale wrote:
> I have used a Firefox extension that could script both butting presses and
> field entries, and I believe it could check data form the page.  I will see
> if I can look up the name
> 
> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Neal Rhodes via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
> 
>> Boring "Real-World Details":
>>
>> So, we are planning a summer trip to Glacier National Park in Montana.
>>
>> We would really like to camp at Many Glaciers Campground in the park.
>> However, at present,  all the sites are already reserved.   They are
>> reserved through recreation.gov, starting 6 months to the day from today.
>>
>> But we have a really strong impression that people initially book a long
>> stretch, then later either reduce the duration once they get more specific
>> plans, or cancel.
>>
>> SO, we really want to detect if/when sites become available over the next
>> 6 months and jump on it before someone else does.
>>
>> There is someone who offers this as a service for $40 a reservation,
>> irrespective of whether they are successful.
>>
>> Exciting Technology Application:
>>
>> Initially I looked at the HTML for their search page, with the thought of
>> using "wget" to simulate the reservation request.   That increasingly looks
>> like a fool's errand, assuming that they may have session cookies related
>> to sign-on and other magic handshake crap that would be difficult to
>> simulate.  And what happens when they alter their data fields?
>>
>> Then I thought:  All I want to do is:
>>
>> Setup a browser window on our Centos 6 desktop, any browser that
>> understands https;
>> Run that browser through the responses to get it to the search window on
>> this campground, and put in all the dates and related input.
>> Then:
>>
>> Run SOMETHING that will automate:
>>
>> Hit the Search Submit button;
>> See if the resultant page contains "No Suitable availability"
>> IF Not: Email me
>> Sleep 15 minutes
>> Rinse, Later, Repeat
>>
>> This sounds to me like a very elemental application of a test/control
>> manager for a GUI interface.    If I can automate an existing browser, we
>> can eliminate all the complexities of trying to fake out their web server.
>>
>> Since this just sits on my desk in the basement, I can live with
>> hard-coded screen coordinates.
>>
>> What tools exist in Linux to do this?
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> Neal Rhodes
>> MNOP Ltd